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It’s hard to remember a point where Abbachio wasn’t always beside him, which is why it takes Bruno so long to realize there’s something that’s been worrying him about Abbachio’s nightly routine. Evenings are the rare few hours where Abbachio’s presence isn’t a constant, and the way it used to go, the way it felt like Bruno’s every evening since he’d joined Passione had gone, was that he would steal away into whatever safe house room Abbachio had claimed, steal an eyeful of Abbachio working out or doing post-workout stretches, and remind him of the next day’s jobs and to get some rest. Abbachio would dismiss the idea with a short bark of laughter and wipe sweat from his forehead before flicking his fingers at Bruno playfully, shooing him off and bidding him goodnight. And if Bruno lingered for a few seconds longer in the doorway to watch Abbachio breathing heavily, shirtless and gleaming, then that was his business and part of his routine, besides, so it was fine.
But now Abbachio isn’t there to bid him goodnight. He’s not in his room, not in the kitchen with a cup of tea or a glass of wine, robe and slippers on, and not in anyone else’s rooms either—Bruno’s already checked, and it seems that no one else knows where Abbachio’s been going at night, or what he’s been up to lately.
“It’s just kinda weird, isn’t it?” Narancia says, laying on his bed and watching Aerosmith putter around in circles above his head, scootling idly through the air. “Not like Abba at all. He never leaves your side, does he?”
Bruno blinks, glancing aside. “I hadn’t considered it that way, but I suppose. Has he told you where he’s going at any point?”
“Nuh-uh. I haven’t even seen him leave the safe house.” Narancia sits up and looks Bruno up and down, frowning. “You know why else it’s weird? Your breathing’s been heavier than normal. Aerosmith can tell. You’re still hurting from getting shot, aren’t you?”
Bruno winces, giving Narancia a reassuring smile. “I suppose. Giorno did his best to smooth the wound over, but it went deep. I’m not used to being shot, either. I’m not Mista.”
“Thank God,” Narancia huffs. “But you got shot! And—and it doesn’t feel right that Abbachio just keeps leaving every night when you’re sitting here and you’re hurting! Doesn’t he care?”
“Narancia, I’m sure he does,” Bruno soothes him, keeping his voice gentle, trying to regulate his breathing beneath Aerosmith’s watchful eye. “He hasn’t left my side once all day since it happened. I’m sure he just needs the nights off and away to relax.”
“You are? I’m not. That’s not like him at all,” Narancia says, shaking his head. “He doesn’t relax, not ever. It’s like…you know how even when cats are showing you their bellies, if you pet them they’ll bite all your fingers off? That’s Abbachio.”
“Cats only do that because they’re showing vulnerability as a gesture of trust and we’re misinterpreting it from a human perspective,” Bruno replies, and Narancia throws a pillow at him.
“Shut up, you know what I mean! It makes sense, doesn’t it?” he demands, and Bruno has to concede that it does. Abbachio doesn’t rest. He wishes with all his heart that Abbachio would rest, but the truth of the matter is that he’s always so tightly wound, and if something in him threatens to break—
“Do you think he’s drinking again?” Narancia says, his voice so soft it shatters Bruno’s soul. “Not normally. The way he did before.”
Bruno doesn’t say anything for a long while. Maybe it’s only a few moments, but it feels like so much more, standing there and watching Narancia’s eyes fill with hot, fearful tears.
“No,” he says, and does his best to believe it. “He wouldn’t do that to us.” To me.
“He might not know any better if he’s all messed up and angry or scared—I just don’t know and he won’t talk to me, and if he is drinking again I’ll—I’ll hit him! I really will, and you can’t stop me I’ll hit him so hard he won’t know what hit him but it’ll be me—“
“Nara,” Bruno says, firm and soothing, “stop that. He’s fine. He’s not drinking. He might just need to keep a new interest of his private. A woman, possibly.”
Narancia stares at him, scuffing tears out of his eyes and shooting Bruno an exasperated look. “A woman? Abbachio? Not unless you picked her out for him!”
Bruno’s face flares pink. “Narancia, that’s disgusting. And—and not true, and. We don’t know if it—I mean, he could just need the comfort, or the emotional release of confiding his worries to a woman—“
“Trish is right here!” Narancia protests. Bruno winces.
“Trish is a child, she doesn’t count. Besides, I’m sure he wouldn’t do something like that to you, even if she wasn’t also five years younger than him.”
Narancia blinks. “Do something like what to me? What’s Trish got to do with me?”
Bruno opens his mouth, thinks better of it, closes his mouth and then thinks better of that, opens his mouth and then just decides to drop the whole issue entirely. “Nevermind. The point is, whatever Abbachio’s out there doing, I’m sure it’s perfectly innocent and reasonable, and if you’re still worried, I promise I’ll talk to him about it when he gets back in the morning. Does that help?”
Narancia nods. “Yeah! We gotta stick together, y’know? Especially when one of us gets hurt. And Abbachio should know that!”
“He does, Narancia,” Bruno reassures him. “He’ll be all right. And I’m not mad at him, so you don’t have to worry about a fight between us.”
“I wasn’t worried about that!” Narancia insists, but his face tells a different story. Bruno smiles.
“I know, I know. Did you do your nightly reading with Fugo yet, or should I go get him?”
“Ugh, I did, go nag someone else now, mom,” Narancia groans, dramatically falling backwards into his pillows with a plop, Aerosmith buzzing above him in agreement.
“All right, I will. Don’t stay up all night playing video games, Narancia,” Bruno says, and is rewarded with a genuine little laugh from Narancia as he leaves his room and closes the door, waiting until he’s out of Aerosmith’s immediate range to sag against the wall and sigh, pressing his fist against the cool, slightly bumpy siding.
He didn’t lie to Narancia—he’s not mad. He knows he’s not mad. But there’s something that just isn’t sitting right in his chest, and it has nothing to do with the bullet lodged in there, turned to a pulsing mass of muscle and sinew that aches like a phantom limb.
Bruno turns away and Sticky Fingers is standing in front of him, their arms folded across their abdomen, hesitant and heavy. They shhruk and vrrp at Bruno, rushed, staticky metal noises that accompany them opening a small zipper portal, gesturing at it hopefully. Bruno shakes his head.
“No, I don’t know where he’s gone. It would be a waste of time to unzip myself through the entire town, and if I’m not well-rested tomorrow I’ll never hear the end of it from him anyway,” Bruno says, trying to keep his voice light, like his own Stand doesn’t know exactly how he’s feeling, or why. Sticky Fingers looks understandably unimpressed. Bruno huffs. “Yes, I am worried! But I have the rest of the team to think about, and we’ll—we’ll talk in the morning!”
Sticky Fingers zips the portal back up, makes another vrrp noise, and despite the fact that they don’t have eyes, Bruno wilts under their gaze and glances away, sighing in frustration as he turns towards the end of the hallway and opens the door to his own room, standing in the small, hollow space and taking in the cold, liminal air of the safe house. His lungs ache in protest, and so he opens a window to let the summer air in, even though he can hear Abbachio in his head chiding him about the risks.
If you’re worried about me risking an open window in my room, why aren’t you here to watch over me? Bruno accuses his internal image of Abbachio, the barb lodging itself in his throat and pulsing with pain. He shakes his head and sighs, turning the lights off and climbing into bed before rolling over under the blankets, eyes half-closed even as Abbachio’s face looms large in his mind, features creased with worry and covered in blood.
Bruno bolts upright, his chest aching, and banishes the image from his head, swallowing hard and staring at the blank wall until it slides away and he can lay down against the pillow, willing himself to sleep.
…
The night is warm and sweet, though now it stinks of copper and piss, which Abbachio regrets somewhat, but not enough to take his finger off the trigger. There will be other sweet summer nights in Naples, and once this matter is settled, he will share them all with Bruno. But there are things he must take care of first, and a higher calling he must behold.
The seething mass of meat and viscera in front of him was once nominally a man, though a man wouldn’t have double-crossed Passione and taken it out on Abbachio’s capo. He’d been harder to track than a wounded fox, even with Moody Blues’ assistance, and so Abbachio had been forced to stalk the city night after night, a hunter returning to his blinds and snares across the streets, searching for the face he’d committed to memory after dozens of replays, unwinding the moment Bruno was shot over and over and over and ov
Abbachio, you don’t have to finish this. You’ve made your point. Go home to your man and let God have this one.
“Fuck you,” he snarls at his ghost, spit shining over his teeth like a shroud. “I won’t let what happened to you happen to Him. Never. I’ll wade through rivers of blood before I lose Him, too.”
You would snuff out the light he gave you so freely? Could you stand before him soaked in blood and ask to be forgiven? Would your pride allow it?
“It’s not my light,” Abbachio says, sighting up the line of his shot, his hand steady on the trigger. “It’s His gift, and only He can take it away from me.”
The trigger slides back. The bullet blasts forward. After agonizing weeks of searching and hunting and replaying his worst nightmare, the whole thing ends in a lurch, blood spraying across the street and soaking into Abbachio’s shoes. He looks up and through the ghost before him, his heart racing and his head aching. Enough of being haunted. He just needs to go home.
“It’s not my pride that won’t allow it,” Abbachio says to the listening silence. “I have no pride left. I am His instrument. That’s all. If there is nothing I do that is not for Him, what is there that He won’t forgive of me?”
The ghost before him wavers, falters. Abbachio sighs and reaches out his hand for just a second, soaked in blood, before thinking better of it and pulling away, placing it against his chest.
“I wish you would forgive me too,” he says. “I wish who I was could ever be forgiven. Don’t you understand why I left all of myself behind for Him?”
There is no answer this time, not even one Abbachio imagines in his head. He turns away with a heavy heart and starts down the road for the walk home. The blood in his shoes dries and scabs, falling off with every step. It takes him longer than he’d like to return home to Him, doubling back and going out of his way to throw off anyone who might be trying to tail him. If he brought the wolves home to His door—
Abbachio shakes his head, takes a deep breath, and finally lets himself walk down the road towards the safe house after circling it for hours. The night is still deep and rich, but past the turning point towards dawn. He imagines in another hour or so, the sky will shine silver and hint at an oncoming dawn. Perhaps he’ll be awake to see it.
Abbachio enters the passcode, unlocks the door, and makes his way upstairs towards his bedroom, his heart in his throat and his eyes sore, blood stuck in his lashes and making every blink sticky and thick, which is his reason for not noticing Narancia standing in the hallway until he almost bumps into him. Narancia reaches out and grabs him, holding onto Abbachio tight.
“You came back,” Narancia says, his voice breaking. “Abba, you—you’re covered in blood—“
“Of course I did, hush,” Abbachio says, rubbing at his eyes, though all it does is spread more tacky, scabbing blood over his face. “Narancia, go back to sleep. It’s not my blood.”
“Oh,” Narancia says, an eerie Passione-honed calm settling over him as he regards the blood in a new light. “Wow. I thought Moody Blues didn’t fight?”
“They don’t. I do.” Abbachio brushes past Narancia and takes the last few steps to Bruno’s door, slumping down in front of it with a sigh of relief. “I’m not finished with my mission, Nara. Go back to bed. We’ll talk in the morning once it’s over.”
Narancia doesn’t say anything. For a few seconds, he stands over Abbachio, and watches him wait outside Bruno’s door, and Abbachio’s too tired and gummy-eyed to figure out the look in his eyes, only noticing when Narancia finally turns away and shuffles back to his room, shutting the door with a soft click. Abbachio tilts his head back and closes his eyes.
From somewhere within him, Moody Blues whirrs and vweeps in concern, a dial-up tone of despair. Abbachio takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax.
“There’s nothing to worry about,” he reassures them, and himself for good measure. “It’s almost over now.”
He manages a half-sleep for awhile, though part of him remains alert and watchful, waiting for—what, exactly? Any threat to Him that might arise, but should he be spared his worst fears, then—merely His presence would be more than enough. Better than beholding the silver sky before dawn. He has missed Him so dearly these past few evenings.
The door at his back bows away, and Abbachio sits upright, awake and wide-eyed, scrambling to his feet.
“Leone?”
He stops. Sinks to his knees before Bruno, head bowed. Tears slide from his eyes and scour the blood from his lashes and lids, trickling down his face in sluggish scarlet rivers. He blinks them away and is left blinded by the sight of him in the doorway, eyes full of fear.
“It is finished,” Abbachio says, desperate to soothe the sharp edges of Bruno’s fears, which stick deep in his throat. “I took care of it. You have nothing to fear, Buccellati.”
Even holding His name in his throat swells like the breath of life, leaving his mouth hollow and his lungs aching. Bruno hovers in the doorway, wavering between motion before lowering his hand. Abbachio tilts his head and rests his cheek against Bruno’s open palm, leaning into the press of his fingers. He can feel His pulse beating in His thumb, and it puts Abbachio at ease, his own heart matching His, beat for beat.
“Leone,” Bruno says, blessing him with his name twice in a day—Abbachio marvels at his luck, letting the sound travel through the wave of his ear to the shore of his jaw, settling beneath his skin. “What have you done?”
“Your will,” Abbachio says. “I found the man who shot you.”
“What? How did—Moody Blues can’t fight—“
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” Abbachio murmurs, shaking his head. “I used Moody Blues to hunt my prey. The finishing blow was mine to deliver.”
“So you killed him,” Bruno says, as casual as if they were reviewing their weekly chore list. “I know this blood’s not yours.”
Abbachio closes his eyes, radiant in his bliss. It’s only natural that He would understand, but it fills his heart with joy nonetheless. He nods, head still resting in Bruno’s hand. “I did. He won’t bother you again. I left his body out for the gulls as a warning to others that would try.”
“Well, then I suppose the matter is settled, isn’t it?” Bruno says, and the glow of his praise doesn’t shake the feeling that there’s something else in his words that Abbachio doesn’t understand. “Come. We have more important matters to discuss than bodies. A bath, for starters.”
“What?” Abbachio says, still rising to his feet as Bruno beckons him. “I’m not finished. I have to—you need someone to keep watch at your door.”
Bruno gives him a look that he can’t read. His head hurts, and the sweet lull of laying back down against the door nags at him, Abbachio’s whole body aching with the need for sleep.
“Don’t you think I would be better protected if you were inside my room?” Bruno coaxes him, keeping his voice gentle. “You could respond to danger much easier from in there.”
“You did leave your window open,” Abbachio grumbles, following his lead even as he scolds him gently. “Honestly, Buccellati. What were you thinking?”
“It was cold, and I wanted a breeze.” Bruno holds a hand out as Abbachio takes another step into the room. “You don’t think you’re getting into bed like that now, do you?”
Abbachio furrows his brow. “What about bed?”
“The closer you are, the safer I’ll be,” Bruno says, and Abbachio’s had too little sleep to argue the point. “But I’m not about to let you get blood all over the sheets. Come here, Abbachio.”
He obeys, Bruno’s orders moving faster than his own instincts and reflexes. Perhaps they were the same thing, or inextricably entwined now—it was alternately too early and too late to ask himself that sort of question, and so he allows Bruno to gently herd him into the adjacent bathroom and sit him down. When Bruno kneels to take off his shoes, Abbachio manages a vague, mumbled protest, but Bruno waves it off immediately.
“These shoes are ruined, Abbachio,” Bruno scolds him, making Abbachio wince. “How did you manage to walk home in these?”
Abbachio doesn’t have an answer for him, so he doesn’t respond. Bruno sighs and pulls the leather free from his blood-soaked foot like a scab off of a wound, tossing the shoes aside. Before Abbachio can get up, Bruno puts a hand on his thigh, and Abbachio falls stiller than snow.
“Hush,” Bruno soothes him. “You did so much for me tonight. Let me do something for you.”
“You already have,” Abbachio says, his voice ardent and aching. Bruno says nothing, and Abbachio’s heart curdles as he turns away from him, blinded by worry. “Buccellati—Bruno, please—you have. You are. For all of me, you are.”
Bruno turns back around to him, and the look in his eyes leaves Abbachio open and helpless. Bruno places the warm washcloth in his hand against Abbachio’s cheek, swiping the scabbed tear streaks away, drying his eyes and soothing his aches, setting a bowl of warm water aside.
“How could I ever be worthy of someone like you?” Bruno asks, and Abbachio weeps, his heart full and his body hollowed down to the marrow of his yearning. Bruno brushes his hair away from his forehead before lowering himself to his knees, dipping the washcloth into the bowl of warm water and washing the blood from Abbachio’s feet clean, the water dripping tinted burgundy onto the tiled floor. Abbachio’s breath hitches as he prepares a protest, but Bruno’s grip is firm, and he is left helpless to deny his gift. He waits as Bruno washes water over him, his whole body honed to a point of absolute silence, every inch of him inert and awaiting instruction.
“There you go. Now you won’t stick to the shower floor,” Bruno says, rising to his feet and wringing the washcloth out in the sink. Abbachio blinks.
“Shower?”
Bruno gives him a gentle, exasperated look. “What, did you think you were getting away with only washing your feet? You’re covered in blood.”
“Oh, right,” Abbachio says, his voice vague. “I lost my control somewhat. After the third skull fracture, I think.”
“Four is just bad luck,” Bruno says. “Come on, then. Take off your clothes so you can get cleaned up.”
He’s halfway out of his shirt before he realizes that the thought of undressing for his capo should excite him, horrify and overwhelm him, but His orders come before his emotions, and so he strips for Him with surgical precision, his touch devoid of both passion and panic. Bruno’s already stepped away from him to turn the shower on, and Abbachio steps under the spray before he can show off the bruises and scratches on his arms and chest. He hisses as the water stings them, sluicing new scabs away and softening his skin, all his wounds white around the edges.
“I take it he fought back,” Bruno remarks, sitting on the sink counter, watching the muddled form of Abbachio’s injuries moving through frosted glass. “Are you sure there’s nothing worth reporting? I could ask Giorno to look over your injuries—“
“You would have to kill me first,” Abbachio says, and Bruno mutters something he’d picked up from one of the cabal of nonnas that follow him around Naples and accuse Abbachio of being too skinny to give their beloved Buccellati sons. Abbachio huffs, then reconsiders when his ribs ache in protest. “What? I don’t need him thinking I can’t take care of myself.”
“You know he doesn’t think that. He thinks you’re amazing,” Bruno says, falling back into a comfortable conversational routine so as not to think about how Abbachio flinches and cringes away from his wounds as he washes himself down. “He’s told me more than once he’s glad that I have you around to protect me. I think he admires that about you.”
“He admires you, you mean,” Abbachio grumbles. “I just don’t understand what he thinks to gain by talking that way about me.”
“Your friendship, maybe,” Bruno says, his voice dry. Abbachio snorts in derision before gasping in pain, leaning the wrong way against a bruise on his hip, the shower wall biting into it. Bruno stands up and throws open the shower door without thinking, stepping inside and pushing Abbachio up against the wall, water pouring down the front of his shirt and making it stick to his heaving sides.
“Stop hiding from me and show me what happened,” Bruno commands, and the way Abbachio obeys without hesitation makes him forget what he’s asking, or where he’s asking it. He turns to bare his chest to Bruno, showing the spattering of bruises and claw marks across his arms and stomach, holding his hands out to show where they’ve swollen and split. Bruno sighs, taking Abbachio’s hand and lifting it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to his bleeding knuckles, staining his lips red.
“Truly, I am not worth these wounds,” he says, his voice soft. “Oh, Abbachio. You have to promise me you won’t do this again.”
Abbachio’s chest heaves, his eyes hesitant and his heart torn. He knows he can’t refuse an order from Him, and he would swear any vow He asked of him, but—
“What if I lose you?” Abbachio says instead, sidestepping the schism inside him to stare deep into the abyss. “How could you ask me to take that risk?”
“The same way you put yourself at risk for me,” Bruno says, and Abbachio flinches. Bruno takes his other hand, holding them both in his grip, his fingernails digging crescent moons into Abbachio’s swollen skin. “How could you make me worry like this, Abbachio? I spent weeks wondering where you’d gone every night. We thought—I thought—you were going to leave us. That you’d been putting yourself in danger. And knowing that you had—“
“Do you worry after the welfare of your gun?” Abbachio says, his voice scrambling and desperate as a fly caught in a web. “I was never in danger. I was serving my purpose.”
“No,” Bruno says, and Abbachio’s heart shatters. “No, cuore mio, no. Not when your purpose is me. And it is, isn’t it?”
Under his unyielding gaze, Abbachio nods. Bruno’s grip upon his hands tightens.
“If that is the case, then do not leave my side again,” he says, resting his thumb against Abbachio’s hand. He can feel Bruno’s pulse again, and the frantic beating has slowed down some as he strokes his thumb along Abbachio’s skin in circles. “I won’t have you taking these scars on your soul for me. It’s not your decision to put yourself in harm’s way, cuore mio. It’s mine. And I will not allow it. Have I made myself clear?”
Abbachio, weak-kneed with want, lets himself slide down against the shower wall, falling to Bruno’s feet. Water trickles down his back and face, the shower spray the only noise in the heavy, pulsing space between them.
“Of course, capo,” Abbachio says, his voice so rough it scours his throat. “I hear and obey.”
“I know you do,” Bruno reassures him, reaching down with one hand to idly stroke his hair while he reaches to turn the shower off. Abbachio allows himself to be petted without protest, but holding back the whimper in his throat when Bruno withdraws his hand is harder than he expected. “Now that that’s all settled, since I’ve gone and gotten my clothes wet, would you mind drying off while I change?”
Abbachio nods, mute and numb, rising to his feet and stepping out of the shower, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around his waist, shaking his hair out. He doesn’t put two and two together until turning around to find Bruno naked before him, the lace-patterned tattoos over his top surgery scars shining black as ink under the scattering of water droplets over his chest. Abbachio tears his gaze away from the sight after a few stolen seconds only to meet Bruno’s eyes and watch the way he smiles, brighter than the dawn.
“Now we match,” he says, tugging the towel from Abbachio’s waist. “Let me borrow this, cuore mio? I didn’t realize I’d need one.”
Abbachio gives it up without complaint, padding after Bruno as he towels himself off and drapes it over the open window, letting the early-morning breeze dry it off. Abbachio stands in front of the bed, his head heavy and muddled with the dregs of exhaustion, but his body will not move despite this, a nameless anxiety boiling in his chest.
“Abbachio, go to bed,” Bruno says, and Abbachio collapses like an empire into the vast expanse of Bruno’s sheets, already half-asleep before his face hits the pillow.
“But it’s your bed,” he manages to mumble before finally succumbing to exhaustion with Bruno standing over him and watching his breathing slow down, his chest rising and falling in rhythm. Bruno reaches down and rests his fingers against Abbachio’s cheek, running them down his jaw and pressing them against his pulse, feeling it beat and letting it lead him back towards sleep as he climbs into bed beside him, laying down with one hand draped over Abbachio’s waist, their shower-warm skin steaming in the cool morning breeze.
“Ours,” Bruno says, and closes his eyes, falling asleep.
…
No one disturbs them until well into the afternoon. Even then, it’s the smell of a late lunch that rouses them both from sleep, something spicy and warm brewing in the kitchen.
“We should stop them,” Abbachio says, ever the worried parent, his brow already knitted together. “They’re liable to burn the house down without supervision.”
“They’ll be fine, they managed breakfast without us,” Bruno yawns. “Rest, Abbachio. You need the sleep.”
“I’m fine,” Abbachio insists. “Really, I should—“
“Don’t go,” Bruno says, and Abbachio stops, his arm holding him upright as his hair hangs over his shoulder. Bruno looks up at him as the light from their open window catches the tangle of his hair and makes it shine like silver, his breath catching in his throat at the sight.
“I don’t want to keep you,” Abbachio says, his voice vague and trailing off. Bruno hums softly, blinking up at him like a cat at ease.
“How could you keep me when you are already mine?” he asks, and Abbachio falls for him in seconds, sinking back into bed with a single touch, turning to Bruno in bed and letting him stroke his hand over his cheek, tucking his hair behind his ear.
“Stay with me, Abbachio,” Bruno commands, and for once, Abbachio hesitates.
“Are you sure?” he asks, casting his gaze aside, waiting to be judged unworthy. Bruno cups his chin and tilts his head to make Abbachio meet his gaze, rubbing his thumb over his jaw.
“How much longer must I live without my heart?” he asks, his free hand resting against Abbachio’s chest, his pulse trembling against Abbachio’s heartbeat. Abbachio shakes his head and blinks back tears, taking Bruno’s hand against his heart and lifting it to his lips in a kiss, answering him with the way his body opens to receive his blessing, allowing Bruno in between his legs and against his chest.
Abbachio lets himself be held, Bruno pulling him close until their legs are entwined and their arms are meshed like a fisherman’s net, holding them tight against each other, their breathing hot on one another’s skin and their chests pressed together, their heartbeats tugging on one another like the moon pulling at the tides, a connection deeper than the soul and stronger than instinct; something ancient and innate as the rotation of the world.
Abbachio yields to the turning of the world and lets Bruno tether him to it, brushing his lips against Bruno’s throat to communicate all yet unsaid. When Bruno’s hand slides down to rest against his waist and pull him closer, Abbachio surrenders himself to absolution and gives himself up for loved.